There is only one
other car on British roads today which is as familiar as the Morris
Minor, and that's the Mini. That both were designed by the same man
is no coincidence, and indeed Sir Alec Issigonis is one of the very
few car designers whose name is recognised by the man or woman in the
street and not just by enthusiasts or fellow engineers.

Alec Issigonis
designer of the Morris MinorThe products of Sir Alec's genius have
had a profound and highly beneficial influence on the British motor
industry, so it is hardly surprising that it is his first car, the
Morris Minor of 1948, which has become the subject of this proposal
for a long-life car.

The beginnings of
the Morris Minor can be traced back to 1942, with the first prototype
appearing in the experimental workshops at Cowley early in 1943-by
which time it could be determined that the war would eventually be
won, and that a new small car for the peace would be needed, to
replace the Series E Morris. Its design had been placed in the hands
of the young Alec Issigonis by Nuffield Organisation Vice- Chairman
Miles Thomas, who had been quick to perceive an exceptional talent.

The car which
gradually emerged from Issigonis's sketch-pad and from engineering
drawings prepared by his two right-hand men Jack Daniels and Reg Job,
was by the standards of the nineteen-forties unconventional to say
the least. Gone were separate running boards and wings, replaced by a
highly modern unitary bodyshell which dispensed with a chassis frame
and which displayed advanced Transatlantic styling features never
seen before on British cars. Additionally, Issigonis had specified
uniquely small wheels for the new car, two or even three inches less
in diameter than the average, giving it more of a 'big-car' look and
doing much to enhance its proportions generally.

Underneath the skin,
the new Morris was similarly up to the minute. First and foremost,
Issigonis sited the engine right over the front wheels instead of
well behind them, much investigation and experimentation having
proved that the weight of the engine in this position dramatically
improved the stability and controllability of a car. The front wheels
themselves were given an advanced torsion-bar independent suspension,
which combined with the rigidity of the unitary construction body,
gave a standard of ride comfort such as had never been experienced in
a small British car before. About the only dated aspect of the Minor
when it was announced at the 1948 London Motor Show was the engine, a
very orthodox 917cc side-valve unit derived from the Series E Morris
Eight and first seen in 1934. Issigonis had hoped to use an all-new
'flat-four' engine but this didn't prove practical, within the
deadlines and budget set by Morris Motors, for production use. Maybe
it was as well, because the well-proven Morris Eight engine served to
give the new Minor an immense degree of reliability from the very
start, lacking teething-troubles as it did.

Morris Minor
Production LineThe Minor was certainly a 'new generation' of small
car. Not very fast (the side-valve Series MM could lust about manage
62 mph), everyone who drove the new Morris quickly discovered that
its sure-footedness and light, rack-and-pinion steering (another
innovation for a small car) made it a delight to drive. Other cars
felt clumsy and unresponsive by comparison, and Minor owners were
soon having fun leaving far more powerful (and ostensibly sporting)
cars behind on twisty roads.

Eventually, the old
engine was pensioned off, replaced during 1952 by the famous 'A'
series engine, initially in 803cc form-its use being made possible by
the merger of Austin and Morris to form the British Motor Corporation
at the end of 1951. The 'Series II’ Minor was announced in July
1952; apart from the power unit, little else was changed.

Then, after a
face-lift for 1955, when a slatted grille replaced the mesh-type and
the speedometer took up its position in the middle of the dash, the
beloved Minor 1000 arrived in October 1956. Gone was the split
screen, but much more important was the new 948cc version of the
A-series engine. This 'made' the car, which up until then had
definitely suffered from a lack of pep, only its nimble handling
allowing it to maintain high average speeds. The extra power was even
more appreciated abroad, particularly the United States where the
additional urge made entering freeways that much less hazardous. In
fact, U.S.A. sales peaked in 1959 with a total for that year of
14,991.

A further landmark
came as 1961 approached-the millionth Morris Minor was completed,
becoming the first British car ever to achieve this production
figure. A commemorative batch of 349 replicas were produced, finished
in a strangely garish shade of purple and with white upholstery.
Quite a few of these special models (which were otherwise standard)
still survive.

minor_histThe final
large-scale technical improvement for the Minor came in October 1962
when the 1098cc car was announced, the extra capacity being
accompanied by a new baulkring gearbox and a much-needed higher final
drive ratio. This more than enabled the Minor to keep its place in
the small/medium car performance tables and it continued to be a firm
favourite with both fleet managers and families.

But the Minor was
not immune from fashion and progress. Inevitably, its market share
attacked by such as the new Austin/Morris 1100 (also from Issigonis's
drawing board) and later the Ford Escort. Sales declined and although
not axed when British Leyland was formed in 1968, the convertible was
phased out in 1969, the two and four door saloons in 1970, and
finally, the popular Traveller version in 1971. The 'light
commercial' variants (van and pick-up) met the same fate, and the end
of an era in British motoring had come.

These are the facts
behind the Morris Minor; but they hardly explain all of the car's
appeal to so many people, an appeal which if anything is growing. To
many owners, the Morris Minor is more than a car-it is a familiar,
dependable friend that does everything asked of it, and for
astonishingly little in return by way of running costs. It is very
simple, so there is not much to go wrong, the components used in its
construction have been tried and tested over many years of
production. So, there are few known weaknesses because the car
pre-dates the sealed-for-life approach, most of these components can
be lubricated and thus have extended lives. And when something
finally does wear out, the chances are that just a bush or a bearing
can be replaced, and not the whole unit as with many modern vehicles.

Of course, some
people drive old cars for fun, and treat the obvious deficiencies of
the machinery as being all part of the game. But apart from the
owners of the very early Minors, the slow old side-valve MM's, those
with Morris 1000s particularly do not regard their cars as being
mobile museum pieces, but consider them to be entirely practical for
the new millenium. This is another factor which sets the Minor apart
from other old cars designed in the 'forties-thanks to the perception
of Sir Alec Issigonis, the Morris Minor has few of the drawbacks of
cars dating back to this period. Unlike many of its contemporaries,
it has light steering and still-pleasant road manners, it has
well-planned accommodation inside, and lacks the thick, ugly door and
windscreen pillars that were all too often a hallmark of the early
'fifties.

Add to this the
economy of running, an excellent parts situation, and the inherent
reliability of the car, and you can see why the Morris Minor remains
a favourite with both old and young-from the retired couple with the
last car they will ever buy, or the 17- year-old with her first car.
For them, it does everything that is required of it. The Morris Minor
is a phenomenon, and it deserves to continue its useful role,
consuming little in the way of fuel or materials, and giving a great
deal in return.

Issigonis' design
included the same ideas he had proposed for the Ten before the war:
Independent suspension and rack and pinion steering plus the
continued use of unitary construction. In the case of the Mosquito
Issigonis was inspired by the Citroën Traction Avant, a car he
greatly admired, and he proposed using torsion bars on each wheel, as
on the Citroën rather than the coil spring system of before. The
French car, launched in 1934, had also been an early example of rack
and pinion steering.

Nearly every feature
of the Minor serves the joint aims of good roadholding and maximum
interior space. For example, Issigonis specified 14-inch (35.5 cm)
wheels for the Mosquito. These were smaller than any other production
car of the time (the existing Morris Eight had 17-inch (43 cm)
wheels). These small wheels reduced intrusion into the cabin space
and minimised unsprung mass for better ride comfort and stability.
The wheels themselves were placed as far as possible in each corner
of the Mosquito's floorpan for the same reasons. The same went for
the placement of the engine, far towards the front of the engine
compartment. With most cars of the time having a front beam axle,
this forced the engine to be mounted behind the front axle line.
While this meant that with only a driver on board the weight
distribution was fairly even, when laden with passengers cars often
became severely tail-heavy, leading to unstable handling and
oversteer. The new Morris' independent suspension meant there was no
front axle, allowing the engine to placed low down and far forwards.
Putting the Mosquito's engine in the nose meant that when lightly
laden the car was nose-heavy, leading to superior directional
stability and when fully laden it achieved nearly equal weight
balance, so handling and grip remained good regardless of the load
carried. Placing the engine forward also maximised cabin space.

The engine itself as
proposed by Issigonis was also radical, being a water-cooled flat
four unit. One of Miles Thomas' few restrictions on the Mosquito
project was that it had to have an engine that would not fall foul of
the British horsepower tax, which actually taxed cars via a formula
relating to their engine cylinder bore. At the same time Thomas
wanted the car to appeal to the all-important export markets, which
had no such restrictions and generally favoured larger-engined cars.
Issigonis' solution was the flat-four engine which could easily be
produced in two versions - a narrow-bore 800cc version for the
British market and a wide-bore 1100cc version for export. Both
versions would use identical parts save for the actual cylinder
blocks (which could still be produced on the same machinery) and the
pistons. The flat-four layout reduced the overall length of the
engine, further increasing potential cabin space, and reduced the
car's centre of gravity for improved handling.

The last thing you
expect to have on your tail these days is a Morris Minor. But that
looks like being my lot for years to come. Earlier this year, I
couldn't get enough of the little rounded cars, famously damned by
their reluctant maker Viscount Nuffield as "poached eggs".
Everyone I met was quizzed: did they have one? Had their parents?
What about their grannies, sisters, cousins, aunts?

I met people who'd
raced them, scraped fungus off them for primary school nature tables,
turned one into a mechanical lobster and applied to be buried with
theirs when they (the person, not the engine) died. It was lovely and
I learned that the two words "Morris" and "Minor"
were a sure way of getting almost anyone to go all soft and say:
"Aahhhh."

It was necessary,
too, because my task at the time was write the car's biography to
celebrate its 60th birthday, a worthy occupation because the Minor is
a case study in sociology as well as a classic piece of design. It
was the first British car to sell a million and in the process
achieved an exceptional lovability, or more precisely, a knack of
making people extraordinarily fond of it. Anyone in need of this –
a politician, a suitor, a parent or a child – should study Morris
Minorism from A-Z and see how it can be done.

A is for Alec
Issigonis, the car's inspirational Levantine creator (assisted by Reg
Job and Vic Oak who were as village-blacksmithy Brit as their names).
Z is for…, well, Z is difficult actually, unless you nerdishly
include the Series Z Post Office van which the bright red Minor
version replaced in 1953.

In between is
everything else; but that's all in the book. My purpose here is to
warn other nascent biographers, who don't already know, that a baby
like this seems to be for life. Morris Minor, the Biography: 60 Years
of Britain's Favourite Car has been out for just two weeks, but
already I have 14 new anecdotes, two phone messages and three
promises from relations to tell me about theirs when we meet at the
extended family party on Boxing Day.

"My Dad only
got rid of his when he was overtaken by a pedestrian when he was 85
and driving to the pub," starts one recollection. "Our
neighbour kept hers even when it stopped going," begins another,
"because unlike modern cars it was strong enough for her stand
on without the metal dimpling when she was cutting her hedge."

Does this happen to
mightier biographers? Was Morley beset with details he had omitted
about Gladstone? Does Michael Holroyd ever escape from enthusiasts
for Augustus John and George Bernard Shaw, or Claire Tomalin wriggle
out from under the shadows of Hardy and Pepys?

The last two perhaps
provide the answer: finish A and move on to B, which I am now about
to do with a sequel on the Mini, which is 50 next year. That, and
perhaps, in tune with modern interactive publishing, a couple of
blank pages between the index and the back cover, for readers who
aren't included to write their own experiences down.